he joins us from new york. it is interesting, i was here back in 2008-2009 when there was a ground offensive into gaza city. the situation in terms of the geopolitical situation has changed a lot now for hamas and for israel, given the arab spring. how does that impact decisions now on the ground here? >> nobody seems to have any serious ability to exercise any control over either of the two parties. the united states now has taken a sort of back seat to the conflict saying only that israel has a right to defend itself primarily and on the arab spring side, you have a lot of new faces, but they haven't demonstrated they have any more influence over what hamas does than mubarak did or any of the dictators that these governments have replaced. so you have a situation where you have two sides fighting and nobody has the ability to tell either of them, listen, it is time to stop fighting and start talking. and to start getting a dialogue going. there is no intermediary who can step in and get either of them to >> s